Sugar and Vows
by CreepingMuse
Summary: Luke's knees grind like a sack full of ball-bearings as he lowers himself to the ground. He fumbles with the ring box, but manages to fish it out. "Lorelai Gilmore," he starts.


Luke makes her dinner, the way he has for decades now. She doesn't pay any more, of course – not that he ever charged her full freight. He'd spent a fortune keeping those girls in burgers.

It used to be the best part of his day, waiting for them to come in. When they didn't come for breakfast, his whole shift was off-balance, like he was slinging coffee with only one arm. But what got him through was the hope that maybe, just maybe, they would pop in for dinner, Rory with a pile of books and Lorelai with a heap of stories. Might only be takeout, but didn't matter. It was almost enough.

Then, no matter how busy he was or she was or they were, he cooked for her every day. Sometimes all she wanted were donuts and frozen dinners, and he grumbled and thawed them for her. When she worked late at the inn, he packed her dinners, snuck vegetables into her burritos and tucked in fresh fruit that always came back bruised and uneaten.

Every morning. Every night.

But this is different. Tonight's not just slide-another-breakfast-platter-extra-bacon across the counter. Tonight, he _cooks._ Yes, there are the burgers and BLTs and eggs and mac and cheese. That's a given. But there's also the Yankee pot roast, like her mother's housekeeper made, the one Lorelai actually liked, who used to slip her cookies. There's the Americanized Chinese food with just the right dosage of MSG. There are even the homemade Pop Tarts that call for so much sugar, Luke resigns himself to a life of managing her diabetes.

He should do more. Jesus, he should do more. He should get the troubadour to compose a song and sing it at the next town meeting. He should create a whole festival for her – get all her obscure old movies and music he doesn't get and play it all, end on end, for days on the green until finally there's some kind of flash mob and he proposes and she says yes and the whole town cheers.

She would love that. And he would want to die.

He pulls the triple-cocoa-powder brownies out of the oven.

This might be a middle ground.

Champagne chills in the fridge. He would've gotten Zima, too, but they don't make it any more. There's some Smirnoff Ice instead - next best thing, he guesses. He has Rory's blessing. He thought about asking Emily, but that probably would have been a no – though she's thawed, she's changed, ever since Richard – but Rory made more sense. And she, on a crackly Skype call from the trail with Hillary, laughed and said, "duh."

Candles. He should light candles. Maybe in Mason jars? People seem to like Mason jars now. But they look stupid in the diner, shining off the chrome, and they might give him away. He dims the lights instead. Rearranges the pile of Danish. Pats his pocket for the reassuring lump of the ring.

Then she tears through the door like a pink hurricane, words rat-a-tat-tatting out, pouring herself coffee without even noticing the spread he's laid. "I think we're going to have to put Cletus out to pasture. Today he managed to bumble off-trail – and his rider didn't think anything of wandering through a blackberry patch, so great job there – and wound up wandering into Miss Patty's while the little girls were learning to be sugar plum fairies. Is there a horse in 'The Nutcracker'? Maybe we can make that work. He's not a very balletic horse, but he might be able to learn. But otherwise –" she grabbed a club sandwich quarter, just barely pausing for breath – "otherwise, I think we might have to look into another trail horse. And finding someplace for him that's not a glue factory." She leans in for a kiss. Luke does too. "Hi, honey. How was your day?"

"Nothing to compete with dancing horses." He swipes sweaty hands across his jeans. "Sorry to hear about Cletus. He was a good horse. Well, I think he was. Not really sure what makes a good horse, but he wasn't a _bad_ horse."

"Uh huh. What's with all the food?" The club sandwich is gone and she's already dishing up cottage pie.

"I thought you might be hungry."

"Not going to say no, but this is enough to feed all of Kirk and Lulu's kids. Twice." But still, food piles up on her plate. "You gonna eat?"

"Oh, right." He blindly grabs food – jelly donuts with egg fu yung, sure, fine, good as anything else – but stays on his side of the counter.

She talks more. He lets it wash over him in a comforting wave of sound, making the right noises at the right times. The ring seems to get heavier and heavier in his pocket, but he lets her eat and talk.

It's going to be right this time. It has to be.

It wasn't that he _minded_ her asking last time. That was something the town cared about. But after his failure and their fracture and their falling back together again, he couldn't screw it up. This has to be right and it has to be fast. Marriage while you wait. She has to know that he's hers, and if she wants, she could be his, too.

"How long do you think these pot pies will last?" Lorelai asks. "Rory's home in six days, and she loves a good pot pie. Maybe we could wrap them up and save them? They'd be good TV food."

"Stick 'em in the freezer and they'll keep forever. I'll put them up for you. Lorelai—"

"My hero." She slips around the counter and slips her arms around him. "Don't know what all this food was really for, but I'm happy it was here. And…" she frowns. She's not supposed to be frowning. Not today.

"What is it?"

"What's in your pocket?"

All this and he's given away by a stupid ring box.

"Don't suppose you'd buy I'm just happy to see you?"

"Well, if you are, I think we need to see a doctor about that, because you definitely didn't seem 'happy' like that last night." She leans back and looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since she swirled in. "What's going on?"

Luke's knees grind like a sack full of ball-bearings as he lowers himself to the ground. He fumbles with the ring box, but manages to fish it out. "Lorelai Gilmore," he starts.

She leans against the counter, one hand draped over her mouth. "Luke."

"No, listen. Lorelai Gilmore, I want you to marry me. If that's what you want. We can go tonight – to Maryland, or to Atlantic City, maybe. We could find an Elvis impersonator to marry us, you'd like that."

"I think that's just a Vegas thing."

"Don't care. Elvis impersonator, Paul Anka impersonator, whoever you want, I will find someone. We could wake Reverend Skinner, if you want it right in the eyes of God and all. Whatever you want." He thumbs the ring box open. Liz's idea, white gold and a sapphire that's more purple than blue. Modern, Liz said. Matches Lorelai's eyes, he thought.

"Lorelai Gilmore, will you marry me?"

She's smiling. That's a good sign, right? But then – "Luke, stand up."

The tips of his fingers turn cold. "I don't want to."

"Then I'm coming down." She's on her knees next to him now. Her hands wrap around his, but they're somehow still frozen. "I love you, Luke. And I love that you're asking."

"That's not a yes."

"If this is what _you_ want, and _you_ need, then it's a yes. Of course it is. But for me, this isn't…" She wasn't supposed to cry. That wasn't part of this.

"Look, hey, just…forget about it, OK?" He starts to stand, but she grabs his shoulder and keeps him down.

"When I asked you to marry me, I was so scared. _So_ scared. I'd lost everything. Rory, my parents, everything else that mattered to me. And then you were there and you were so good and so kind and you were my life raft. And all I could think was, how can I make sure he won't float away? Or start the on-board motor and … you don't run on water, but whatever boats do very quickly when they want to get away from something." Her hand slides to his neck. "I wanted you to stay. And getting married seemed the best way to make sure you would."

"I was never going to leave," he says. "I'm never _going_ to leave. I just…with April, there was stuff to figure out." _And I was scared too._

"And I know that. But at the time, I didn't." Her hand is on his cheek now, rubbing his scruff the wrong way, sending bolts down his spine. "We've gone through everything since then, together. Rory went to live her life, we figured out April – I _love_ April – you almost losing the diner during the recession, my dad…"

Her voice still breaks every time she mentions him. That, he gets.

But then she's looking at him with shining eyes. "If you want to get married, then yes. Atlantic City. A drive-through wedding and a tacky buffet as our reception. I will do that and I will be _so_ happy."

He braces himself. Because it's coming. And it's going to be big and it's going to be bad. "But," he says for her.

"But there's nothing a marriage certificate can tell me that I don't already know." She kisses him, and no matter how many times she does, it's like the very first time. "Not any more."

"So, you don't want to get married?"

"Luke Danes, do you promise to stay with me no matter how infuriating my mother is? No matter how flighty I get? No matter how many times I try to dye Paul Anka the dog to match the walls of this diner?"

"How is that even a question? Though you really do need to leave that poor dog alone—"

She nudges the ring box. He darts several looks at her face, trying to figure out the play here, then pops the ring free. She holds out her hand; he slides it home. "Then I promise to stay with you no matter how many times you get frustrated that I can't remember the rules of baseball," she says with a laugh. "No matter how many times you call me crazy, and no matter how much I may doubt that I deserve a man like you."

It's his turn to kiss her, fingers laced together, the cold ring pressed against his flesh. "You deserve everything."

"I think we _both_ deserve one of those Pop Tarts." She darts up and grabs the pastries while he laughs. They sit, draped together on the floor of the diner, and cover each other in sugar and vows.


End file.
